Brackets are now posted.

http://www.niiconline.com/men/baseball/bracket.htm

Rockford will play Aurora to begin at ISU as Benedictine faces off against Clarke at Eureka. Most games of the tournament will be played at Illinois State University. Rockford is 1-2 against Aurora, and Benedictine is 2-1 against Clarke this season.

The teams are wrapping up conference play with two games tonight. The tournament will be next weekend for the top four teams. Clarke and Benedictine play tonight after Rockford plays Aurora this afternoon. Current standings are below. For more information, keep an eye on http://www.niiconline.com/men/baseball. Records were pulled from that site as well, so pardon any inaccuracies that may occur, but I'm pretty sure they're right. Thanks again for your interest in NIIC athletics.

AURORA (27-7, 14-0)

CONCORDIA (18-17, 9-6)

BENEDICTINE (18-17-1, 7-7)

CLARKE (14-22, 7-7)

ROCKFORD (14-21, 6-8)

EUREKA (1-32, 0-15)

4 teams get into the conference tournament out of the 6 competing. This will be the final NIIC tournament before the transition to the Northern Athletic Conference. Due to a series of rainouts this weekend, every team in the NIIC currently sits at 12-13 games out of their 15 to complete prior to the tournament. Benedictine will play Clarke in 3 games this week while Rockford plays Aurora for the remaining two games of their series and Eureka and Concordia face off for two.

Of the four losses for Rockford, two were to #30 Washington University. Chapman, whom they played last night, is currently ranked #4 (last I checked).

Aurora lost to University of Pitt-Bradford and Juniata College on Monday. (9-8 and 10-5, respectively)

And now, for something relevant for our conference to celebrate...

Rockford College won a Pool B bid to the NCAA Tournament!

For those of you that remember Rockford's Steve Ketter, he signed with the Gary Southshore Railcats recently. It's no Phillies, but it's still pretty cool for him.

I'm kind of anxious to see the preseason Coaches' poll in a couple weeks here. Just a couple more weeks til the opening pitch of the season!

Does anyone on this board talk about something other than Aurora? Haha. I was just catching up and it seemed rather Aurora-centric. Anyone with predictions for the NIIC Tourney in a couple weeks? Obviously a number of you think highly of Aurora (and rightly so, I suppose), but where do you think the rest of the field will finish? Personally, in spite of a low body count to start with, a pair of season-ending injuries and a couple problems during conference play, I think the Regents will show up to the tourney with their A game and surprise a few people...then again, I think they'll surprise a few people in the next two weeks, starting with Benedictine and then hitting Eureka and Clarke. While the Clarke game should be a good one (77-87 loss for the Regents last time), the Regents have shown that they are capable of taking down Benedictine and Eureka and, if they succeed in doing it again, will move upwards in the rankings in time for the tourney...what do the rest of you think?

Is it just me or has BEN's Tamika Curtis been dominating for the Eagles? (Don't confuse that with "dominating the Eagles," as players like Jennison Cox also perform quite well.) How many double-doubles does she have now to go with those four POTW awards? I'll be sure to tune in for the Benedictine-Clarke game tomorrow and see how she and Jennison Cox do against Jessi Briggs and Lauren Johnson as we face off against Curtis again on Saturday.

Going into the tournament, I predict it will be Rockford, Aurora, Benedictine, Clarke, Concordia, Eureka...anyone want to argue something relevant like this?